


The Unforgiving Moonlight

by clockheartedcrocodile



Category: The Exorcist (TV)
Genre: An Unrepentant Angst-Fest, Angst, Fantasizing, Guilt, Loneliness, Long Distance Pining, M/M, Masturbation, Mutual Pining, Self-Flagellation, Self-Hatred, Touch-Starved, post-s2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-07
Updated: 2018-02-09
Packaged: 2019-03-14 21:30:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,369
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13598784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clockheartedcrocodile/pseuds/clockheartedcrocodile
Summary: Marcus hasn’t slept peacefully in a long time.Sometimes he’ll wake in the night, torn from his sleep by the teeth of a nightmare, and he’ll listen for the breathing in the dark. But there’s no bed next to his own, no Tomas breathing there. If Marcus looks over he won’t see him, sleeping on his belly with his face half-obscured by his pillow and his blankets tucked under his hands. Marcus used to imagine, lying awake after a nightmare and listening to Tomas breathe, that Tomas might hear him crying one night. That he might come to his bed and lie down next to him, put his arms around him and fill Marcus’ ears with the nonsensical murmurings of a lover.Marcus could fall asleep like that.-In which Marcus and Tomas miss each other desperately, separated by a thousand miles. No excuses, just an unforgivably indulgent angst-fest.





	1. Tomas

They’ve run out of gas. Again. Fucking piece of shit truck.

Mouse has been antsy all evening. Tomas occasionally sneaks a glance at her as he drives, and sees her sitting with her feet on the dash, and her head turned to stare out the passenger window. Lost in thought. What she thinks about, he doesn’t know. Mouse is not very free with her emotions. He has never seen her cry.

The truck grinds to a halt on the side of a long country road, and Tomas slams both hands on the steering wheel in frustration.

“You should have kept your eye on the fucking tank,” says Mouse, still staring off into space.

“I know,” Tomas says in frustration. “I know, I know.”

_Can’t even keep the fucking tank full._

“You could’ve filled it up in the last town we drove through.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t think. I had a lot on my mind.”

“Well fucking think next time. We’re stuck here now.”

Mouse sighs, a weary, frustrated thing, and shoves open the door with her boot. “What is it, an hour’s walk there and an hour’s walk back? That’s nothing.”

“I’ll do it,” Tomas says at once, unbuckling his seatbelt.

Mouse silences him with a look. “You’ve been driving for seven hours,” she says, her voice a little gentler. “I’ll do the walking.”

She pushes the door open further and lowers herself onto the ground, her boots crunching against the gravel. She turns around, leans her arm against her chair. “Hand me the flashlight?”

Tomas reaches over, pops open the glovebox and starts fishing around. “I’m sorry,” he says again, because he needs to say it almost as much as Mouse enjoys hearing it.

“It’s alright,” Mouse says, taking the flashlight from him and snapping it on. She points it up at her own face, ghost-story style. “I could do with a walk.”

Mouse pauses, gives Tomas a sad, almost wistful look.

“Maybe I’ve been overworking you,” she says, and then she’s closed the door behind her and Tomas watches her back as she retreats down the lane, the beam of the flashlight sweeping the ground in front of her like a prison searchlight.

Not that she needs it, Tomas realizes. The moon is bright tonight. Bright enough to see by.

Tomas turns to face front-ways again and sighs, bringing his hands up to rub his eyes with their heels. The road the truck had stopped on cut through a wide field of sweet-smelling grass, and when Mouse had opened the door Tomas could smell it, thick and cloying on the night air. A cold night, but a fresh, sweet, and clear one. The chill made his skin break out in gooseflesh.

The perfumed fields stretch out around him in all directions. Tomas’ truck feels like a little island in the night, like a single lit candle in a darkened window.

 _No,_ Tomas thinks, staring at the peeling gray padding on the ceiling. _Not my truck._

It was Marcus’ truck first, and it was Marcus’ truck still. He had said nothing about it when he left it with Tomas, but Tomas likes to imagine he saw something in his eyes. _Take care of her for me. I expect her to look factory-fresh when I come back._

He hadn’t said any of those things, and some quiet, bitter part of Tomas knew that he hadn’t even thought it. But Mouse had tried to ditch the truck three times, told him it was a security risk, they were being followed, but Tomas had come up with excuse after excuse, and he was running out of them.

 _He gave me this truck,_ Tomas wants to scream in her face. _He gave me the whole world, and when he left, he took the whole world with him. Everything but this truck, and I can’t even keep the tank full._

But Mouse is gone, and Tomas is well and truly alone, with only the wind and the moonlight for company. Tomas listens to the soft rustling of the grass, and realizes that this is the first moment of privacy he’s had in weeks.

Not that he’d had privacy when he was with Marcus, mind you, but he hadn’t noticed it then. Or at least, it had made him feel, if anything, more at ease. But Mouse’s presence seemed to swallow him whole. The closest thing he got to being alone was when he was showering. He was a man and she was a woman after all, and where Marcus could be in and out of the bathroom five times or more while Tomas was showering and neither would think anything of it, Mouse had to wait, and would occasionally knock on the door and tell him not to use up all the hot water.

Once, only a few days into the New Arrangement, Tomas had been humming to himself in the shower, and when he came out, Mouse had gently teased him about liking James Ray. It was then that he realized that Mouse could hear him in the shower, which meant skulking off to the bathroom to touch himself was not an option.

He wonders if, in the past, Marcus could hear him too.

Slowly, as though afraid that any moment Mouse will open the door and illuminate his shame with her flashlight, Tomas reaches down to unbuckle his pants.

It’s been a long time. Too long. How many nights has he woken up dripping and achingly hard, dreams and desires already half-forgotten? How many times has he bit his knuckles and prayed for his hard-on to wilt, unable to do anything more personal when Mouse is sleeping soundly in the next bed?

It has been a long, long time since Tomas has pleasured himself, and he is still young, still needy for it.

Tomas slips his hand just under the waistband of his briefs, but he can barely get his hand around his cock before his head thumps back against the headrest and he groans in frustration. He takes his hand away and clamps it over his mouth instead.

“No,” Tomas groans through gritted teeth. He gives himself a little slap, just on the side of his stubbled cheek. _“No.”_

But this is what he deserves, isn’t it? He knows its true, even as his cock twitches in his pants, and he has to squeeze his legs together to try and kill his meaningless arousal. He _deserves_ to be alone, he _deserves_ quick and shameful orgasms, with no one watching but the moon.

“Fuck you,” he says quietly, his teeth gritted, and he even as he slips his hand back into his pants he hates himself, he hates himself, he hates himself.

When he finally gets his hand around his cock again, Tomas thinks he might cry.

He gives it one firm stroke, from the base to the head, and he can’t help but thrust his hips up into his own touch, fucking himself on his own hand. Tomas scrambles for the lever on side of the chair, finally finding it and reclining his seat with a loud ker- _chunk._ He stretches out as much as he can on the only slightly inclined surface, his back arched, his knees knocking the steering wheel as he strokes himself faster, and when he starts to feel precum dribbling down his fingers Tomas finally cries out _“What did I do wrong . . ?”_

He feels tears start to sting his eyes and he squeezes them shut, forcing himself to keep stroking, imagining a rougher, firmer hand, and a warm voice so full of love that Tomas wants to scream. _He doesn’t want me, he doesn’t want me anymore,_ Tomas thinks desperately, his eyes tight shut, imagining the hands that won’t touch him anymore, the voice that he no longer hears. _I didn’t listen, I strayed too far, and he doesn’t want me anymore._

“God!” Tomas cries out, though that’s not who he’s crying for. “God!”

Tomas’ phone is burning a hole in his back pocket and he arches off the seat so he can fumble it out, snapping it open with one shaking hand. “Don’t,” he stammers to himself, “don’t, don’t,” but he can’t stop, he _needs_ to hear him, and he stumbles his way through the last number he remembers Marcus having.

He holds the phone to his ear and listens to it hum, breathing heavily and still struggling to work an orgasm out of his aching cock.

It’s a long, long wait.

_“The number you have dialed is no longer in service . . .”_

Hearing the words spoken so coldly, so robotically, is devastating.

“Pathetic,” he groans, tossing the phone aside and giving himself a firm, angry slap on his right thigh. _“Weak,”_ he snarls, as he slaps himself again, and again. “Weak, weak, fucking _weak_ for calling, why the _fuck_ would you call, he doesn’t _fucking_ want you anymore.”

The last slap is the most painful, and Tomas has to lean back against the headrest and let out a shaky breath to steady himself. He doesn’t dare think what Marcus would say if he saw him like this. He doesn’t dare think of the way Marcus would look at him.

It would almost be easier if he could believe that Marcus hated him.

“You must have loved me,” Tomas whispers, baring his heart to the empty night. “You must have loved me so much.”

His hand stills on his cock, already raw and red from its treatment. Tomas tries to ignore the hot, stinging pain of his thigh, and begins to stroke himself gently, trying to touch himself as he imagines Marcus might. His hands are too soft for it, too smooth.

“I miss you,” he says, his voice still choked up. Tomas shuts his eyes tight, and begins to murmur something almost like a prayer. “Sometimes I can’t sleep at night, because the breathing from the next bed is all wrong.”

The cab of the truck feels cramped and unfriendly, a little metal box with the world outside it, howling to get in. Tomas can hear the wind in the grass, and the whistling of distant owls, and it all feels so cold and unfamiliar that for a moment, just a moment, he would give anything in the world to be back in Chicago again. Marcus on the couch and Tomas in his bedroom, nothing between them but a door and a line they’re thinking of crossing.

“I dream about you,” Tomas murmurs, moving his hips just enough to thrust up into his hand, his precum making the motion a little slicker, a little easier on his skin. “I wanted . . . to kneel for you, I wanted . . . oh God, _Marcus_ . . .”

His muscles, already aching from his awkward position in the truck, are starting to tighten. He can feel his climax sneaking up on him, rising hot and needy and hungry for something more than just his own hand, and Tomas feels tears start to drip down his cheeks because it shouldn’t be like this, it shouldn’t, it should be Marcus touching him.

“I wanted to kneel for you!” Tomas gasps desperately, working himself a little faster, his back arched almost all the way off the seat. “I wanted to make love to you, with my . . . my fucking . . . filthy . . . mouth . . .”

 _A mouth that has serviced demon cunt,_ he thinks, and the thought of dirtying Marcus’ cock with that mouth is obscene, but Tomas wanted it, he wanted it so bad, and of course Marcus left him, he’s ruined, he’s unwanted, of course, of course, of course he wanted to leave . . .

His orgasm is painful and sudden, torn from him as though by force, and Tomas lets out a choked gasp as he spills himself into his hand, hot and filthy between his fingers. When he comes it’s with Marcus’ name on his lips, Marcus, who had touched him and called him brother, Marcus, who had come to him in a dream and burned with all the glory of heaven, Marcus, Marcus, Marcus, who was made of love but had never once told Tomas that he loved him.

Tomas lies there, limp and wrung-out and spent, his arousal gone like a passing breeze and leaving him with a puddle of wasted seed and shame festering in his heart.

Tomas swallows, a dry, painful little gulp, and then forces himself to sit up, to dig around in the glovebox for a paper napkin and start mopping himself up. It’s too scratchy on his oversensitive cock, and he has to bite his lip to dull the pain. The smell of sex seems repulsive to him now, in the dead air of the truck’s cab, so Tomas kicks open both the doors and lets the cold night air in, bringing with it the aroma of the sweet-smelling grasses all around, and the pearly glow of the unforgiving moonlight.

The napkin he crumples up and tosses into the field on the other side of the road.

He hopes Mouse won’t notice it when she comes back.


	2. Marcus

It’s not a bad life.

Marcus gets up early to the sound of shrieking seagulls, and spends the first few moments of his day in prayer by the window. On his knees, (they creak when he kneels,) with his hands clasped before him, (still blistered from yesterday,) he’ll reel off the usual litanies, and a few prayers of his own design. These ones are short, and needy, and they grow shorter, until eventually all their weight has settled on two words.

_Come back._

God’s voice is not forthcoming, but that’s okay.

It’s not a bad life.

Marcus stretches in the morning, cracks his neck, goes to wash his face in the sink. Mrs. Fritz has been kind enough to bring him a fresh towel, and he uses it to blot off his face. He thinks to himself, _I haven’t seen a demon in weeks,_ but it’s a hollow thought. There’s nothing they could say to him now that he hasn’t already said to himself.

Marcus tugs his coat on, gloves his hands, and steps blinking and sleep-sore out into the early morning fog. Time for work. Time for life. Time to walk down to the docks, where he’ll pick things up and put them down till lunch. Afterwards he’ll set sail with a couple other men, grayer and scruffier even than he, and they’ll go out with nothing but come back with enough fish to feed an army. Some of Christ’s disciples had been fishermen. It’s a good profession, full of good people. Marcus is the baby of the group.

It’s not a bad life.

The pay is good, and the work is good too. Hard, honest work that taxes Marcus’ muscles, not his mind. He’s exhausted at the end of every day, but his head is empty and his heart is full. His friends clap him on the back, and thump their elbows against his shoulders, all their touches the affectionate, fleeting, and brutish touches of men with other men. Marcus matches their affectionate brutality with punches and thumps of his own, and it feels almost normal.

Sometimes he takes his lunch with a handful of the other guys, sitting at the white picnic tables outside the chip shop near the shoreline. They don’t talk much, but when they do it’s to joke or to chide, or to crack wise about the management. They don’t interrupt Marcus when he bows his head over his meal, and when he raises it again he’s met with smiles, and more shoulder thumping. It’s good to have friends.

Some of them like to bore the rest to death talking about their kids. They ask Marcus about his, and he makes up a daughter. She has Casey’s cleverness, and Gabriel’s goofy smile. She’s around the same age as Harper.

Sometimes he’ll talk about this daughter for too long, and they laugh. Classic Marcus.

At the end of the day Marcus tugs his coat back on and walks, hands in pockets, back to the cheap bed and breakfast where he’s been sleeping for the past few months. Not enough money for an apartment yet, but even if he could, Marcus doesn’t like the thought of renting one. He is a man made for liminal spaces, a man who is quite content living from hotel to motel and back again. There’s no reason to settle down anymore.

Marcus drops his coat just inside the door of his room and makes a beeline for the bathroom, where he takes a piss while staring at the empty wall. He goes to rinse his hands and catches a glimpse of himself in the mirror. There’s that face, all crumpled up from years of shouting at Heaven. There are those eyes, duller now than they used to be.

Marcus runs his tongue along his teeth, wonders if they don’t look more crooked than usual. He grinds them in his sleep, and sometimes when he wakes his jaw is aching like he’s been punched. Marcus doesn’t take care of his teeth like he should. Ever the Englishman.

Marcus stares at himself for a moment longer before he finally frosts the brush with toothpaste and starts brushing. He needs a new toothbrush. He needs a new everything. No, no, need is a delicate word. Marcus _wants_ a new toothbrush. Marcus _needs_ nothing at all.

Marcus rinses, and spits into the sink. He caps the toothpaste, because if he leaves it uncapped again Tomas will snark at him about it later, and something clenches tightly in Marcus’ chest and he has to sit down.

The plastic lid of the toilet wobbles dangerously under him when he sits on it. Marcus buries his face in his hands and doesn’t hear a thing.

The silence is appalling. Sickening. Any moment now he expects to hear a knock on the door, “Marcus, what was that noise?” But there is no knock, and no voice of concern. There hasn’t been for weeks, months now. Marcus is alone.

Finally, as he knew they would be, things are back to normal.

Marcus lets out a shuddering breath and runs his hand down his face to wipe his mouth. When did he become such an old fool? Everything reminds him of Tomas. Every piece of clothing he wears is something Tomas has touched him in, or worse, something that Tomas has borrowed. He tries to draw birds, the sea, the moon, but the lines he draws slip into the familiar profile of Tomas. Tomas, at rest. Tomas, in motion. Tomas, laughing as Marcus reaches over to steal some of his chips. Tomas, martyred on his knees, with his eyes rolled back, their membranes white and wet like the undersides of snails.

Marcus closes his eyes and bows his head, lacing his fingers together at the back of his neck. He’s tired of this. Tired of dwelling on the thought of something beautiful, when he knew even then that it would never last. Marcus was not made for beautiful things. He deserves what he gets, and he gets it again, and again, and again.

It’s early. Outside, the moon is just barely rising over the water, bright enough to see by as it gleams across the waves. But Marcus has been going to bed earlier and earlier now. He’s stagnating in this not-bad place. He needs to fight, to dance, to run, to get in trouble. But there’s none of that here, none of it, so why not go to bed.

Marcus forgoes a shower and slams the bathroom door shut behind him, shedding his clothes like a cicada skin as he walks across the room to bed.

It feels different tonight. Most nights he’ll force a climax just so he can sleep, but tonight, the aching is worse. He misses something he can’t just rub out with an orgasm.

_Tomas._

The way the name, _“Marcus,”_ had sounded on his tongue. Like it belonged in the mouth of a holy man.

Marcus tugs back the faded quilt and crawls into bed, his thoughts full of Tomas, and the way his hair had looked when it was still damp from the shower.

_Not “had looked.” Looks, looks, looks. He’s not dead._

He would know if Tomas were dead. Marcus is not sure how he knows this, but he does. Somehow, from across who knows how many miles of distance, he would feel it. He would wake up in the morning and a something inside him would be gone.

Outside, the moon shines even brighter. It seems to glow out from under the torn edge of the cheap plastic blinds. Marcus can hear the wind whistling across the water, smell the acrid tang of salt and fish blood. The waves against the rocks are too rhythmic, too steady, like the breathing of a sleeping man.

Marcus hasn’t slept peacefully in a long time.

Sometimes he’ll wake in the night, torn from his sleep by the teeth of a nightmare, and he’ll listen for the breathing in the dark. But there’s no bed next to his own, no Tomas breathing there. If Marcus looks over he won’t see him, sleeping on his belly with his face half-obscured by his pillow and his blankets tucked under his hands. Marcus used to imagine, lying awake after a nightmare and listening to Tomas breathe, that Tomas might hear him crying one night. That he might come to his bed and lie down next to him, put his arms around him and fill Marcus’ ears with the nonsensical murmurings of a lover.

Marcus could fall asleep like that.

Marcus buries his face in his pillow to muffle his breathing, as though afraid of waking someone up. He can feel the creeping beginnings of shame begin to well up inside him. That familiar companion, shame.

_Maybe I could speak to him again._

_He doesn’t want to hear your voice, not after what you did._

_But maybe, just maybe . . . he might._

That _maybe_ is enough to have Marcus reaching for the phone on his bedside table, vintage and clunky and cordless. Tomas would have swapped his burner, he knows this, but Mouse . . . maybe Mouse . . .

Marcus shoves the quilt down his chest and rolls over so he’s on his back, dialing Mouse’s number with one hand. The same number he’d scrawled on the cuff of one of his shirts before packing his bag and taking his leave.

The phone buzzes quietly in his hand. Marcus stares at the ceiling, the phone still pressed to his ear, and grips a fistful of the quilt with his other hand.

There’s a damp patch of mold spreading across the ceiling. It shines in the faint cracks of moonlight peeking out from the blinds. Marcus preoccupies his mind with it while he waits for the answering click, trying not to think of what he’ll say if she picks up. It’s the same tingling-hot drop of anxiety he feels in his belly whenever he cries out to God. _Maybe this time, or this time, God will answer._

He has never called this number before. Somehow, he knows that after tonight, he never will again.

There’s a click from the other end of the line. “Yeah?”

“Mouse,” Marcus stammers, and for a moment, it’s feels like the last few months never happened. He is still there, standing in front of her as she leans against his truck and tells him to take care of himself. “Mouse.”

Nothing. No words, no platitudes. Only the sound of a woman breathing.

“I need,” says Marcus, but he can’t finish the sentence, so he tries again. “I want . . . to talk to him. Please. Give him the phone.”

Silence.

“I don’t have his number, I don’t . . .” Marcus puts his hand over his mouth, to do what, he does not know, but after a moment he shakily lowers it and says, “Please.”

Silence. And the terrible, audible click of being hung-up on.

It’s hilarious. It’s so fucking hilarious that Marcus thinks his ribs might break if he laughs at it, so he silently lowers his phone and lets it drop like a rock to the floor next to his bed.

He’s acutely aware of the waves crashing against the seashore outside. The unforgiving moonlight, spreading patches of light across the floor like an expanding pool of mercury. The birds. Croaking. He’s thought about drawing those birds in his Bible, but if he did, that would be like making them real.

Marcus covers his eyes with his arm and lets out a choked sob.

Some quiet, ugly part of his soul, hopes that Tomas remembers that Marcus loved him.

Maybe he’ll even remember some of the things Marcus taught him, a little of the wisdom he’d tried to instill. Maybe sometimes he’ll hear a certain song, and think of Marcus. Maybe sometimes he’ll be outside, filling the truck with gas, and he’ll miss the heavy drape of an arm around his shoulders as Marcus comes to stand next to him.

They are selfish desires, but all Marcus has left are selfish desires.

Marcus slips his boxers down off his hips just enough to get a hand around his cock. He’s not even hard, but if he doesn’t cum he’ll never sleep. The night is cruel, and the wind and the world and the sea are cruel, and it’s been so long now since the last time Marcus was touched.

He rolls onto his belly, giving himself that extra little bit of friction, and starts stroking himself, biting down hard on the pillow to stop himself from making noise. A habit that had begun long, long ago, when Marcus was still a horny schoolboy trying to take care of himself quickly in the darkness without waking anyone up. Years later, of course, he knew the other boys had done it too, stroking themselves to sleep with even more frequency and devotion. But at the time, he had felt like the only dirty sinner in the world, as though he and he alone had discovered the secret pleasure that his hand between his legs could provide.

Marcus bites down harder and shuts his eyes tighter, forcing himself to keep quiet. There’s no one to hear him and no one to care if they did, but the feeling lingers. He closes his eyes so they won’t cast flickering glances at the door. He wishes he could block up his ears, to stop himself from hearing every wave-crash as a knock on his door, every croaking seagull as a creaking floorboard. He can’t silence the mad, delirious thought that after months of silence, now and only now would God speak to him. And Marcus, wretched Marcus, would be too preoccupied with his own self-abuse to hear Him.

Marcus groans into the pillow and strokes himself faster, letting himself think of Tomas. Tomas, with his thick hair and his dark skin and his eyes like stained-glass windows. Tomas, for whom Marcus would have torn the stars from the sky if it meant seeing him smile. Tomas, who . . .

 _Who is probably bigger than I am,_ Marcus thinks, and the thought comes upon him so suddenly and obscenely that Marcus’ hand stills on his cock, and his jaw slackens where it had been clenched against the pillow.

The thought had never occurred to him before, but it must be true. It feels true, when he thinks it. Marcus resumes his stroking, his grip a little tighter, and he lets out a little moan that he can’t quite stifle. Of course Tomas is bigger, he must be, he must be. He is so much more than Marcus, in every way. More beautiful. More blessed. More powerful. _More, more, more._

And yet he had trusted Marcus implicitly. He had knelt before him as one kneels before God, and said, “Teach me everything you know. I want to learn everything.”

What Marcus had heard was, _"Teach me to be an exorcist,"_ but as time wore on he came to the heart-stopping conclusion that no, he had really meant _everything._ Tomas was hungry for whatever Marcus had to give, as insatiable as Marcus was generous. He wanted to learn the name of every band on Marcus’ cassette tapes. He wanted to learn how to box, how to shoot a gun, how to draw, and everything he learned he wanted to learn from Marcus. He had even wanted to be taught how to _dance,_ and no one had asked Marcus to dance in so long. They had ended up practically teaching each other, stumbling through out-of-fashion dances that no one did anymore, laughing when they got it wrong, laughing when they got it right. And Tomas had been beautiful then, as beautiful as he was the day Marcus had excommunicated him from his life like the Church did with Marcus himself, and God, Marcus would take it all back if he could.

Marcus can feel something damp on his pillow, and he realizes he’s been crying. He screws his eyes up tight and keeps stroking, because he has to finish, he has to, there’s no going back now. But he can’t think of anything obscene, can’t think _Tomas is bigger than me_ again, because all he can see when he closes his eyes is Tomas preaching before his parish, olive-skinned and radiant in the morning light. The sun loved him, that beautiful man. Kissed him and tanned him and loved him. When the sun kissed Marcus, all he did was burn.

Marcus had stolen him from that parish.

Even the Church had paid five quid.

Marcus remembered with an awful clarity the first time he had opened the bathroom door to find Tomas tending to an injury, water running pink down the drain. It was a deep bite on his upper arm, the first real injury he’d had since Casey Rance, and when Marcus opened the door Tomas had shown him the bite and proudly asked him if it was going to scar.

 _“You_ did that,” Marcus snarls into the pillow. “You got him hurt, and you made him _proud of it.”_

Marcus squeezes himself tighter, strokes himself as roughly as he can, almost violently, just trying to milk an orgasm out of himself so he can sleep, sleep, sleep, and dream of demons. Never mind that he likes it gentle. Never mind that he’d rather take his time, treat himself with what little tenderness he can muster before praying away the guilt in the morning.

“I’m sorry,” he sobs in frustration, the pillow muffling his words. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

God, it would’ve been easier if he had only lusted after him. If Tomas had only been a stranger to smile at in a bar, a memory of an almost-affair to warm him in the night. But no, he had to be Tomas. Father Tomas Ortega from St. Anthony's in Chicago, a gift God gave him for love, someone that He had hurled recklessly into Marcus’ path.

 _Here,_ He had seemed to say. _Love this man like I love you._

And oh, Marcus loved him with every breath.

He loved him with every beat of his smoke-stained heart.

He . . . he . . .

“I would have given myself to you,” Marcus chokes, a dry, hitching sob wracking his whole frame. “You would . . . you would have been . . .”

 _Gentle,_ he thinks. _You would have been so gentle._

That thought, that final thought, pushes him over. Marcus spills himself hot into his own hand, as he’s done many nights before, and this time, it almost feels good.

Marcus slumps against the mattress, breathing heavily, his mind already sinking into the blissful oblivion of post-coital sleep. He reaches out, tugs the box of Kleenex off the bedside table so he can clean himself up. There is a common school of thought that a man’s seed is something sacred; something to be spent for his wife, and his wife alone. Marcus rolls his eyes whenever he hears it. As if God would ever give him a wife.

 _He might have given you a husband,_ Marcus thinks, and with that final thought lingering in the back of his mind, Marcus closes his eyes, and dreams of demons.


End file.
